Part 3 (1/2)
”What's wrong with Ann? I remember now that I didn't see her in that drove just now, and she certainly ain't at home, because I'm just from thar.”
”No, she isn't at home,” Dolly frowned, and, for an obvious reason, raised her voice to a high pitch, ”but I'll tell you where she is, and as her own blood uncle you can share my humiliation.” Therewith Dolly grimly pointed at a closet door close by. ”Open it,” she said. ”The truth is, I told her she would have to stay there twenty minutes, and I've been bothered all through the last recitation for fear she wouldn't get enough air. All at once she got still, though she kept up a terrible racket at first.”
With a grin Webb mounted the platform and opened the door of the closet. He opened it quite widely, that Dolly might look into the receptacle from where she stood. And there against the wall, seated on the floor, was Dolly's sister Ann, a slim-legged, rather pretty girl about fourteen years of age, her eyes sullenly cast down. Around her were some dismantled, ill-smelling lamps, a step-ladder, an old stove, and a bench holding a stack of hymn-books.
”She ain't _quite_ dead,” John said, dryly. ”She's still breathin'
below the neck, an' she's got some red in the face.”
”She ought to be red from head to foot,” Dolly said, for the culprit's ears. ”Ann, come here!”
There was no movement on the part of the prisoner save a desultory picking of the fingers at a fold of her gingham skirt.
”Didn't you hear what Dolly--what your teacher said?” Webb asked, in an effort at severity which was far from his mood.
”Of course she heard,” Dolly said, sharply. ”She thinks it will mend matters for her to pout awhile. Come here, Ann.”
”I want to stay here,” Ann muttered; ”I like it. Shut the door, Uncle John. It is cool and nice in here.”
”She wants to stay.” Webb's eyes danced as he conveyed the message.
”She says she likes it, an' I reckon she does. Scripture says them whose deeds is evil likes darkness better'n light. You certainly made a mistake when you clapped 'er in here--that is, if you meant to punish 'er. Ann's a reg'lar bat, if not a' owl.”
”Pull her out!” Dolly cried. ”I've got to talk to her, and recess is almost over.”
”Come out, young lady,” Webb laid hold of the girl's wrist and drew the reluctant creature to her feet, half pus.h.i.+ng, half leading her to her sister.
”I'm glad you happened in, Uncle John,” Dolly said. ”I want you to take a look at that face. How she got the money I don't know, but she bought a dozen sticks of licorice at the store as she pa.s.sed this morning and brought them to school in her pocket. She's been gorging herself with it all day. You can see it all over her face, under her chin, behind her neck, and even in her ears. Look here at her new geography.” Dolly, in high disgust, exhibited several brown smudges on an otherwise clean page.
Webb took the book with all the gravity of a most righteous, if highly amused judge. ”Looks like ham gravy, don't it?” he said. ”An' as I understand it, the book has to be handed on to somebody else when she gits through with it. What a pity!”
”I know you are ashamed of her, Uncle John, for I am,” Dolly continued.
”You see, she's my own sister.”
”And my own sister's child,” Webb deplored. ”Of course, she ain't _quite_ as close to me as she is to you, but she's nigh enough to make me feel plumb ashamed. I've always tuck pride in both you gals; but lawsy me, if Ann is goin' to gaum 'erself from head to foot like a pig learnin' to root, why, I reckon I'll jest hang my head in shame.”
”I've lost all patience,” the teacher said. ”Go home, Ann, and let mother look at you. Don't come back to-day. I don't want to see you again. I've lost heart completely. I want to be proud of you and George, but I'm afraid I never can be. She can't write, Uncle John; she can't spell the simplest words in three syllables; and as for using correct grammar and p.r.o.nunciation--” But Ann was stalking off without looking back.
Dolly sat down at the table and drew a sheet of paper toward her.
”She's got me all upset,” she sighed. ”Mr. DeWitt, the new teacher, has been sending about a test example in arithmetic to see who can work it.
He says he can do it, and one or two other _men_, but that he never has seen a woman teacher yet who could get the answer. I was within an inch of the solution when I caught sight of that girl's face, and it went from me in a flash. Uncle John, if fifteen men own in common three hundred and eighty-four bushels of wheat, and three men want to buy sixty-seven and three-fourths of--”
”Oh, Lord--thar you go!” Webb groaned. ”Let me tell you some'n', Dolly.
The fool feller that concocted that thing to idle time away with never hoed a row of corn or planted a potato. Do you know what that's meant for? It is for no other reason under the s.h.i.+nin' sun than to make the average parent think teachers know more'n the rest o' humanity. In the first place, the fifteen common men must be common sh.o.r.e enough if they couldn't own all told more than that amount o' wheat in this day and time when even a one-horse farmer can raise--”
”You don't understand,” Dolly broke in, with an indulgent smile.
”And I don't want to, either,” John declared. ”It is hard enough work to sow and reap and thresh wheat in hot weather like this without sweatin' over fifteen able-bodied men that are jowerin' about a pile no bigger'n that.”
Dolly glanced at the round rosewood clock on the plastered wall and reached for the bell-handle. ”My time's up,” she said. ”I wish I could stop my ears with cotton. They always come in like a drove of iron-shod mules on a wooden bridge.”